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New agriculture census data coming May 2

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will release the final results of the 2012 Census of Agriculture on May 2, at noon ET via a live webcast event. During the webcast, NASS officials will share wide-ranging information about what agricultural products were raised in the United States in 2012, and examine where, how and by whom they were grown.

National, state and county level data will be available, including information that is only collected and reported as part of the every-five-year census. To make accessing the information easier than ever, NASS created a number of online tools.

"We are pleased to announce the upcoming release of the Census of Agriculture, as well as new tools to make the information easier to use than ever before," said NASS Administrator Dr. Cynthia Clark.

"The scope of information down to the county level will be invaluable, showing trends, changes and innovations in agriculture over time. This highly-anticipated data will help farmers, ranchers, policymakers, agribusiness and a host of others make decisions for the future."

The census provides a wide range of demographic, economic, land, and crop and livestock production information as well as first-time or expanded data. Topics are as varied as:

• Biomass and renewable energy production, conservation and other on-farm practices, and agroforestry;• Equine and specialty items as diverse as horseradish, rhubarb, bison and alpaca;• Internet access, value of production, income and expenses, years farming, and farm ownership;• Marketing and distribution methods, value added products, organic production, and direct sales to consumers.

To simplify access to these data, NASS created a number of online tools for people to find and use data of interest. The complete data series will be available on May 2 after 12:00 noon ET in multiple formats from www.agcensus.usda.gov, including:

• Quick Stats 2.0 - an online database to retrieve customized tables. For those new to this tool, a new tutorial video provides easy-to-follow instructions.• API - a tool for developers. • Desktop Data Query Tool- a downloadable desktop tool to analyze data without Internet access once you have downloaded and installed this tool.

The ability to find data across and between these subjects will enable one to learn, for example, the percent of all farmers in the U.S. who were beginning farmers in 2012, what types of crops they grew and in which states or counties they are located; how much the value of sales of a certain crop increased from 2007 to 2012 in a particular county; which is the leading county for number of farms with community supported agriculture sales; and much, much more.

"There is a lot of interest in the new census data because they are the only data that show us the complete picture of U.S. agriculture," said Clark. "We invite those interested to join us for the webcast and hope everyone has the opportunity to visit the Census of Agriculture website and explore the new data."

Please visit www.agcensus.usda.gov for more information about the webcast. Once USDA releases the 2012 Census of Agriculture results, webcast audiences can ask NASS officials questions, either via Twitter or directly through the webcast tools.

Census data will also be available online at noon ET, giving all those interested in U.S. agriculture an opportunity to access it immediately upon the release.

For additional information about the Census of Agriculture including the preliminary 2012 data, which was released on February 20, 2014, and tools to access and share the data, visit www.agcensus.usda.gov. A link to census data will also be available on the USDA Open Data portal, www.usda.gov/data.